He was born Hervé Forneri, the son
of a butcher, at Villefranche-sur-Mer, near Nice, on April
24 1945. He grew up near a US navy base. “On the way to
school I saw American soldiers everyday, and so I chewed gum
and, later, smoked cigarettes,” he recalled. “I played their
jukeboxes, and when I heard Heartbreak Hotel I knew I wanted
to rock and roll.”He formed a band, Jerry Joyce and
the Joycemen, while in his early teens. They were so named,
he said, “because all our idols were American or English”.
In 1960 they signed to the Pathé-Marconi label, who told
them they needed a French name. As Forneri was a fan of
Marty Wilde and the Wildcats, the Joycemen became Les Chats
Sauvages.Forneri himself became Dick
Rivers, after Deke Rivers, the character played by Elvis
Presley in his second movie, Loving You: “But in French it
would sound like ‘Dé-ké’ so I said Dick, like Moby Dick,”
Rivers recalled.They cut their first record on
Rivers’s 15th birthday, and had their first big hit with a
cover of Cliff Richard’s Theme for a Dream, called C’est Pas
Sérieux in French. The following year there was a full-scale
riot at the Palais de Sports in Paris when they shared the
bill with Vince Taylor (the inspiration for David Bowie’s
“Ziggy Stardust” persona).(the inspiration for David Bowie’s
“Ziggy Stardust” persona).They appeared with such giants as
Little Richard and Tina Turner, and in 1962 they sold 2
million copies of the distinctly Presleyan Twist à
Saint-Tropez, but that year Rivers went solo.He had hits that included Tu n’es
plus là, his version of Roy Orbison’s Blue Bayou; and Va
t’en va t’en, a cover of the Moody Blues’ Go Now. He caught
the attention of the Beatles with his version of their 1964
song Things We Said Today, and the following year they
invited him across the Channel to appear in the Granada
television special The Music of Lennon and McCartney. Paul
McCartney later acquired the rights to Rivers’s catalogue.In the 1970s he worked with
another rocker, Alain Bashung, and together they made Rock
Band Revival, an album of classic American songs. Rivers
also toured Canada with great success.In the 1980s he briefly reformed
Les Chats Sauvages, and began a long-running radio show
playing the rock’n’roll music that was so close to his
heart. He later branched out into acting, doing voice-overs
for Disney films and appearing on stage in Jean Genet’s Les
Paravents.In 2015 he suffered brain damage
after a fall, and only returned to touring in 2018.

Though his stardom extended only
to the francophone world, he formed close friendships with
many English-speaking musicians, as he was fond of reminding
interviewers: “I met Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones,” he told
the Montreal Gazette in 2007, “I’ve recorded with guitar
heroes like Jimmy Page, Steve Cropper, James Burton, and
they’ve stayed friends.”stayed friends.”As for the other great French
rocker, Johnny Hallyday, he was more circumspect. “I bump
into him, but we’re not friends,” he said. “I don’t like
nostalgia, I need to renew myself with the young generation
of musicians.”Dick Rivers married, first,
Micheline Davis, with whom he had a son, Pascal, who became
a film director. They divorced, and in 1966 he married
Monique, adopting her daughter. He and Monique divorced in
the late 1970s and Rivers married, thirdly, Babette, who
survives him along with his two children.Dick Rivers, born April 24
1945, died April 24 2019